Chapter 1 — The Month That Stole Her Color
Thirty days can age a lifetime. A month ago, Elena Marlowe was the buoyant woman on the block—the neighbor who remembered birthdays, the mother who laughed too loud at school plays. Since her son Daniel’s funeral, the mirror returned a stranger: hair gone silver at the roots, hands that trembled pouring tea, a gaze so hollow even the family cat looked away.
She stopped cooking, stopped answering the door, stopped believing mornings could be kind.
Chapter 2 — The Dream That Wouldn’t Be Quiet
It happened in the thin hours, when the house holds its breath. Daniel stood at the foot of her bed—not glowing, not ghostly—just a 19-year-old in a wrinkled hoodie, eyes wide with an almost embarrassed hope.
“Mom, I’m alive. Help me.”
Elena bolted upright, heart drumming.
It didn’t feel like grief inventing comfort.
It felt like a message with an address. The sound of his voice didn’t linger in the air; it settled in her bones. Chapter 3 — Closed Doors, Closed Files
She tried reason first.
Cemetery office.
Police desk. Coroner’s window.
“Please—just check,” she begged. “Open the grave.
If I’m wrong, I’ll go home and never ask again.” People were kind but busy; sympathetic but immovable.
“It’s the ache talking,” said one. “You need rest,” said another. A month earlier a highway crash had filled headlines—multiple victims, a storm, a power outage at the county morgue, a closed-casket funeral for Daniel.
“Paperwork is airtight, ma’am,” the clerk assured her.
Airtight. The word rang like a dare.
Chapter 4 — The Shovel That Planted Hope
Before dawn, Elena grabbed the same garden shovel she and Daniel once used to plant a maple sapling that refused to die through three winters. She texted one line to her oldest friend Maya: “I need you to witness the truth.”
At the cemetery, frost bit through her gloves.
The world was gray enough not to notice a woman kneeling by a name she wasn’t finished saying goodbye to.
The soil gave more easily than she expected, as if it, too, wanted this question answered. She dug until breath came in ribbons and the spade thudded against wood. Chapter 5 — The Silence Under The Lid
Elena paused, pressing her palm to the casket.
The quiet inside felt crowded.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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